Maaza Mengiste

Writer, Professor of English at Wesleyan University

Maaza Mengiste is the author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, her debut novel, was selected by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy in Berlin Prize, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellowship, a Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, and a Creative Capital Award, amongst others. Her work can be found in The New York Review of Books, Granta, the Guardian, and other publications.

Photo credit: Annette Hornischer